


I just love being with you

by chronicallyHaughty



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Human Zenyatta, M/M, Oni Genji Shimada, or... is he?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:21:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22639147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicallyHaughty/pseuds/chronicallyHaughty
Summary: The Swedish archipelago is a far cry from where he grew up, but right now, Zenyatta is more than happy to stay. He's meeting so many interesting people, after all.
Relationships: Genji Shimada/Tekhartha Zenyatta
Comments: 3
Kudos: 45





	I just love being with you

**Author's Note:**

> _While everyone else is running and screaming, I just love being with you,_   
>  _I guess they don't see all the things that I'm seeing, that make you so uniquely you, you, you, you..._
> 
> ...This was supposed to be a prompt fill, but man, it _grew._ I'd like to thank my pondmates for telling me to go to bed so I could ignore them and write this in a frenzy at 2am, and for helping me make sense of it the morning after.  
> Here's to you, ricky-toffee. Better late than never!

The plot of land is small, but it has everything Zenyatta needs. The little orchard he tends barely qualifies for the name, being more a copse of apple trees, but the apples they produce have an unusual sweetness. His blatant interest in the apples the moment Ingrid offered him one to try when he first came to look at the house must have been what convinced the Lindholms to allow him to purchase the house.

Like most of the other houses on the surrounding islands, the cottage Zenyatta has called home for the past three years is a deep red with bright white corners, and simple black shingles cover the roof. With help from his neighbours, he has renovated it piece by piece until it is very much his own.

It is a one floor building with an attic best suited for storage instead of people, but Zenyatta has considered preparing the space for year-round habitation. There is a brick chimney for the open fireplace in the living room – that would help keep the attic warm in the colder months, as it does for the bedroom – and the room is traditionally furnished with sheepskins and wooden sofas that double as additional storage. 

The back of the fireplace juts into the bedroom, helping the radiators keep the whole house warm during the colder months. The solar panels on the roof provide enough power for lights and even hot water for the shower, in moderation. In the winter months he boils water on the kitchen wood stove for the dishes and laundry, and walks or skates across the ice to shower at the Lindholm’s house.

The island is small, just under ten acres, and pine trees take up most of it. He has a small dock and a rowboat with a motor that he rarely bothers to install, much less use. It is not a long trip over to his neighbours, after all, and he enjoys the exercise. Beside the house there is a root cellar, a garden shed with an open section for firewood, and a hammock he has set up between two of the sturdier apple trees. The wildflowers and rose bushes, strawberries and raspberries thrive, and the floor of the pine forest, small as it is, is covered in bilberries and lingonberries.

He has placed a little fox statue by the door, for protection and good luck.

This particular day has been spent picking berries in the forest, and as afternoon turns to evening he’s just putting on a pot of coffee to go with the bilberry pie he baked, when there is a knock on the door.

Now, a knock on the door wouldn’t be alarming for most people, but, well. Zenyatta happens to be the only occupant on this island. The only visitors he usually receives are the Lindholms, and they usually call ahead, or at the very least announce their presence with the engine on their skiff.

There has been no rumble of an engine tonight.

The knock comes again, and Zenyatta hums to himself, “’Tis some visitor, nothing more,” and goes to open the door.

Beyond the door stands a man. Perhaps. Many minute details about this man tell Zenyatta that there is more to him than what meets the untrained eye, like the way he holds himself, the way he quickly glances over the hall before finally settling on Zenyatta.

“Can I help you?” Zenyatta asks regardless, because he has manners.

“I saw the light on, decided to come say hello.” The man smiles winningly at him. For a second he glances down to the dock where only his own boat lies at rest, considers calling out the absurdity of that statement, but, then again… Zenyatta smiles back, enjoying the swiftly disguised surprise on the other’s face.

“Well, do come in. I just put on some coffee, in case of an unexpected visit. How fortuitous!”

Should the man prove troublesome, Zenyatta is confident he can handle it. Should he bring no trouble, well, then he will have made a new friend.

“Sugar? Milk?” Zenyatta checks the oven. “Pie?”

At that, the man, who had been casting his eyes about Zenyatta’s home with interest, visibly perks up and focuses on the kitchen.

“Yes! To all three. Please,” tacked on almost as an afterthought. Zenyatta doesn’t mind, letting the man admire the cornflower blue cupboards as he goes about fetching another cup, plate, and dessert fork.

“I believe that in our excitement we forgot to make introductions,” he remarks as he puts on oven mitts and carefully extracts the pie. “I am Zenyatta. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Genji, and likewise. Man, that smells amazing.” Genji is suddenly nearly right on top of Zenyatta, looking over his shoulder at the pie. Zenyatta hadn’t even heard him move. He gestures at the plates next to the pie tin.

“Guests first.”

—————

“There’s something about you,” Genji says through a mouthful of bilberry pie. It is nice to have his cooking appreciated. “You are far from home, I think.”

“And you are not?” Zenyatta retorts, and Genji laughs, not answering. A true enigma.

Together, they manage to demolish half the pie in between hours of conversation, until Zenyatta glances outside to find it pitch black.

“Oh dear, it has gotten so late already. Can you find your way in the dark?” Genji begins to say something but cuts himself off when Zenyatta continues. “Or perhaps it would be safer for you to spend the night?”

“Well, _well…”_ he leers, and then, “Hey! _Safer?_ I’ll have you know that _you’re_ the one who’d be safer if I spent the night!”

“Be that as it may, I will prepare a place for you to sleep, then,” Zenyatta laughs, and again at Genji’s exaggerated pout when he realises that this place won’t be Zenyatta’s bed.

He quickly gathers bedclothes and extra sweatpants for his guest, forgoing a shirt as none will fit. He keeps a mattress inside the storage compartment of one of the wooden couches, and easily sets it up with the linen and pillow and duvet on the living room floor. Genji shamelessly changes right there in the living room, but Zenyatta only laughs. His enthusiasm certainly is charming.

“Good night, Genji,” he says at the door, smiling down at the man wrapped up before the fireplace.

“Night, Zen,” Genji murmurs. The door closes softly between them, and Zenyatta meets the eyes of the little jade fox figurine on his dresser.

It doesn’t move, of course. It is only jade. But it still reassures him that the night will pass peacefully.

—————

“I swear I heard a scream in the night,” Genji says at breakfast. He’s certainly putting away cheese toast like he’s unbothered by it.

“It might have been a deer or a fox. Their calls can sound eerie if you haven’t heard them before.”

“Yeah, maybe. Or maybe it was a ghost.” Genji grins at him, and Zenyatta can’t help but laugh.

After breakfast, they go for a walk around the little island, Genji making faces at the sour lingonberries and threatening to throw Zenyatta into the sea when he laughs at him. They get back just in time for Zenyatta to hear the Lindholm’s outboard engine start up.

Genji loses some of his good humor as he helps Zenyatta fill two baskets with jars of apple jam from the root cellar, and plops down into the hammock as Brigitte berths.

By the time Zenyatta has helped her fasten the skiff and asked how her family is doing, Genji is on his phone, playing some game by the sound of it. Brigitte startles when she spots him.

“Brigitte, this is Genji.”

“Oh, um. Hello!”

Zenyatta can practically see the cogs turning in her head, how there’s only Zenyatta’s little boat at the dock beside her family’s skiff, how any visitor reasonably would have to pass by the grocery and mechanic shop her family runs, but this man definitely hasn’t – at least one of the many Lindholm children would have noticed a boat coming or going, and they surely would have made a ruckus.

Genji doesn’t even bother to look up from his phone when he says, “yo.”

She shoots Zenyatta a curious look, to which he can only shrug. He honestly still isn’t sure how Genji got here, either.

“Well, I won’t intrude too long,” she says, easily picking up the two baskets full of apple jam, heavy though they are. 

“Good,” Genji mutters, loud enough to be heard. Zenyatta stiffens.

“Be safe, Brigitte. And let Ingrid know that the roses she gave me seem to be coming along wonderfully,” Zenyatta says, louder than intended, as he accompanies her to the dock, keeping the skiff steady as she gets on with her cargo. Brigitte gives him a sympathetic smile and a cheery _tack!_ before she cranks the outboard engine awake on the second pull and expertly navigates the little boat back to the larger island.

It takes some doing to irritate Zenyatta, but even he has his limits.

“Finally,” Genji grumbles.

“That was unnecessary.”

“Her visiting? Yeah.”

“Your _rudeness.”_

At this Genji deigns to look up from his phone, clearly startled. Zenyatta takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly.

“Do as you please, I suppose.” Zenyatta puts his sunhat back on. Trimming the beautiful roses Brigitte’s mother so kindly shared with him earlier this year sounds like an excellent activity to focus the mind and calm it down.

Zenyatta is almost embarrassed at his outburst. While Genji certainly has acted a bit spoiled, Zenyatta still feels somewhat betrayed. He’s known Brigitte for three years, for goodness sake, and Genji for mere _hours._ Why would he act like this? As though he is entitled to all of Zenyatta’s time and attention. Bizarre.

He busies himself with checking over the vibrantly pink roses climbing the lattice by the kitchen window, childishly ignoring Genji while his temper is still simmering. There is no need to react when he’s like this. He will calm down and they will discuss what happened. In a while.

He loses himself in gardening, finding almost meditative calm in the work, until a strange shadow passes over his flowers, breaking his concentration. He looks up to find Genji on the roof, for some reason. Once he notices Zenyatta’s eyes on him he easily jumps down, landing heavily but rising unharmed.

“I, uh. I fixed the shingles. Some of them looked like they were about to fall off.”

He’s rubbing the back of his neck, head bowed and eyes elusive. Zenyatta politely doesn’t mention the abnormally deep grooves Genji left when he jumped down.

“Thank you, that was very kind.”

“I’m sorry,” he bursts out, looking like it confuses him a little bit to say it.

“You do not need to repay me, not for the food nor the bed, and while I appreciate the apology, I am not the one who was slighted,” Zenyatta says, meaningfully.

“I know,” Genji grumbles, but he’s fighting a smile. Like a puppy, he’s excited to get approval.

“But, if you’re bored, you can always help tend the strawberries.”

“Sure! What do I do?”

—————

“Why don’t you just buy food? This seems like a lot of work,” Genji interrupts as Zenyatta is explaining how to recognise a weed. Not rudely, per se, more out of genuine interest in the answer.

“It is rewarding work. And besides, someone has to do it somewhere.”

“Doesn’t have to be you,” Genji shrugs. Zenyatta gets the sense that whoever Genji is, or was, many things have been handed to him on a silver platter.

“I enjoy the work. It is strenuous at times, but helping something grow? That is a wonderful thing.” Zenyatta is happy to explain. Genji looks thoughtful, and pays close attention to the rest of Zenyatta’s instructions.

There is something deeply endearing about Genji’s intense concentration as he shuffles around in the dirt, muttering the name of each plant and weed to himself as he checks one and removes the other. Zenyatta can’t help but smile as he watches Genji nurture, in slightly too small dungarees that Zenyatta isn’t even sure where he got. Maybe Ingrid? They look almost comedic with how short in the legs they are, and they stretch to a worrying degree over Genji’s thighs. Yes, quite the tight fit…

Genji swears loud and sudden, slapping at a mosquito, and Zenyatta rips his gaze from his houseguest’s shapely behind before he’s caught looking.

“Man, that bug would have regretted _everything_ if it had gotten any of my blood,” Genji laughs, turning his head to grin up at Zenyatta. Zenyatta makes a split second decision.

“Why?” he asks.

Genji blinks up at him, opening his mouth, then closing it again. Zenyatta looks back at him evenly.

When no words seem immediately forthcoming, he raises an eyebrow.

“What gave me away?” Genji asks, and Zenyatta has to slap a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing at him.

“You _literally_ just implied– oh, _Genji,”_ he does laugh a little, he can’t help it. Genji looks so put out by Zenyatta having figured him out, even a little bit. “You show up out of nowhere, at a very unlikely location, eat like a horse–”

“Hey!”

“–and expect me not to figure out that _something_ is going on?”

“In my defense, most people don’t even want to consider the possibility of… supernatural things.” Genji flaps a hand, indicating said supernatural things.

“You’re not wrong,” Zenyatta allows. Genji gets to his feet, clasps his hands, unclasps them, goes to put them into his pockets before realising it’s too tight a fit, instead leaving his hands to rest limp on his thighs. The very picture of nervousness.

“I don’t mind,” Zenyatta continues belatedly. “That you are… whatever you are.”

“You don’t even know what, exactly, I am. I’m, Zen, I’m not… a good creature.”

“Arbitrary.” Zenyatta surprises both of them with the sharp word. “Good is an act, not a state of being. You have done nothing but good things here.”

“But I…”

“Even humans have spats from time to time. It is how you react to the disagreement that truly defines you.” Zenyatta softens. “You apologised. That says more about your character than your _classification_ does.”

A beat passes.

“You’re right.” Genji nods to himself, then again, more determined. “Hey, Zen. Wanna see something cool?”

Zenyatta makes a gesture as if to say, _the floor is yours,_ and Genji grins, boyish and excited to show off.

Then he flicks his pants open, and drops them.

Before Zenyatta can react to _that,_ Genji’s now boxer and t-shirt clad frame starts to change. His already muscular form grows even more imposing, fabric stretching to the point of near tearing, and his skin darkens to a mild greyish color, decorated by red markings. Horns in that same dull red sprout from his forehead, and his teeth lengthen to fangs. He grows at least thirty centimetres taller.

Transformation complete, he cracks his neck, practically oozing self-confidence.

“Like what you see?” he asks, flirtation even more evident than previously.

Zenyatta looks him over. He does like what he sees. And now that he knows what Genji is – an oni, unless he’s forgotten everything his mother ever taught him – well, is there any harm in indulging?

Genji leans in, towering over Zenyatta in this form, grin decidedly shit eating.

“Well?”

Zenyatta hums, contemplative, before smiling back.

 _“Well,_ show me what you’ve got.”

—————

Zenyatta sits up properly and stretches with a groan. He certainly tries to stay active and fit, but during the cold winter months his options are limited and some of his musculature tends to slip. It is always a bit of work to build it up again in the warmer months. But he seems to have managed adequately this year.

Genji is breathing heavy, face turned to the side as he’s on his front. The pillow is torn, likely thanks to Genji’s fangs and claws. Zenyatta lets the purple bruises littering that grey tinted neck and shoulders soothe any irritation he may have felt at that.

As he rises, suddenly starving, the oni whines pathetically, rubbing his face against what remains of the ripped pillow.

“Zenya, I can’t get up.” Zenyatta laughs at him and finds his underwear. Perseverance in the face of opposition is a virtue.

The fire in the stove is only embers, but they rekindle easily enough under Zenyatta’s ministrations. Zenyatta is chopping vegetables for an omelet when Genji staggers into the kitchen, gloriously naked.

“You’re a demon,” he groans in greeting, rubbing his face and electing to lean against the kitchen table rather than sit down on a chair. His words have no bite, rather the opposite, a wonderment and admiration reflected in his gaze when he removes his hand.

“You’re realising this only now?” Zenyatta teases, waving the wooden hilt of his knife at Genji, showing off yet another fox carving.

Genji blinks at it. Then blinks again, twice, in rapid succession. Zenyatta laughs, delighted.

“Oh! You hadn’t!”

“You–!” Genji gapes at him like a fish, and he’s still attractive. Then he throws his head back in a laugh. “Oh, I really should have, shouldn’t I, trickster?”

Zenyatta only grins, sharp and vulpine.

**Author's Note:**

> [Writing Tumblr](http://chronicallyhaughty.tumblr.com/) | [Main Tumblr](http://nattvingen.tumblr.com/) | [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.social/Feloss)


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